Operating headlights are one of those things we usually take for granted. Sadly, our Porsche's headlights are no longer cooperating.

Last Saturday night, something seemed amiss as soon as we started the car: We had highbeams while the stalk was in the lowbeam position. After a few seconds we were greeted by darkness—no highs, no lows. We were able to get home by using the pass-to-flash feature. That's not exactly the most comfortable or convenient way to drive, but it's better than nothing.

The Pelican Parts message board showed us where to look, and some fiddling around pointed to a bum highbeam stalk. It's one of the few common failure points on the 911, and we just couldn't get ours to cooperate. We could manually manipulate it to deliver high- or lowbeams, but not both consistently. Solution: For $123 (thank you, Autohaus Arizona) we have a new switch on the way.